Where Votes Aren’t Cast, but Castoff : Elections: Two precincts differ in almost every way except that they share some of the lowest turnout in Los Angeles--a total of 25 out of about 1,100.

It would be difficult to imagine two Los Angeles enclaves with less in common than Fraternity Row near the USC campus and the Imperial Courts housing project in Watts.

But last week, these two urban islands of privilege and poverty shared the distinction of having some of the lowest voter turnout in the city.

Returns from Tuesday’s municipal election show that just seven of 463 registered voters--about 1.5%--went to the polls in Precinct 2215, a bustling, jam-packed four-square-block area of sororities, fraternities and student apartments off Figueroa Street.

Across town in Precinct 4215, a crowded, six-square-block city housing project made up of rows of pale blue, cinder-block apartments, only 18 of nearly 700 registered voters cast ballots--about 2.6%. The range throughout the city was from 1% to 41%, and overall, turnout was 18%.

That was up slightly from some recent city elections, boosted by several open or hotly contested City Council races and by the political firestorm over the videotaped Rodney G. King beating. But it remained below the 45% to 65% turnouts of the early 1970s.

“The trend of voter turnout is still down,” said Frank Martinez, chief of the city clerk’s Election Division.

UCLA political science professor Shanto Iyengar and other experts say that reasons for voter apathy, particularly in local elections, are familiar ones. People are busy and distracted. They are alienated and view the political process suspiciously. They are poorly informed and motivated, partly because they see no clear connection between the ballot and their daily lives.

Martinez said city officials are trying new strategies to improve turnout, including producing pre-election cable television spots and audiocassettes for libraries. They also plan to use billboards to alert voters before the 1993 mayoral election.

From their vantage points in the pits of voter disinterest in last Tuesday’s election, residents of Precincts 2215 and 4215 spoke of the problem two days after the vote.

“I honestly believe no one really cares,” said Donald Milne, 23, standing outside a USC fraternity house, a few feet from a throng of hundreds of students in shorts and sunglasses who were partying on a warm spring afternoon.

Despite spending two, three or four years living in Los Angeles’ 8th Council District, where there was an intense battle for an open seat this year, students feel little connection to city politics, Milne and others said. In fact, several said, they pay scant attention to any of the goings-on in Los Angeles outside their campus, which sprawls north of Exposition Park.

“It’s really an island (here),” said Milne, a 23-year-old English major from Scottsdale, Ariz.

“We’re not locals,” added Mike Berger, 18, an engineering major from Orange County.

Gwenyth Elliott, 20, an urban planning major, said she is registered to vote at her sorority, but “hadn’t heard anything” about the election.

Many said they prefer to register in their hometowns. But several said the distractions of socializing and the demands of studying are simply more important than local politics.

UCLA’s Iyengar said that is borne out by studies. “We know people in the 18 to 25 age group have extremely low turnout,” he said.

He added that USC students, many of whom come from white, affluent families in other cities, probably were not motivated by the King controversy, unlike many other voters in the heavily black 8th District. “They haven’t been affected,” he said.

One of the few Fraternity Row residents who voted was 20-year-old Todd Brockman. He said the seven-vote turnout in his precinct was terrible.

Students should have realized that Proposition 1, the failed measure to raise taxes for improvements of Los Angeles’ 911 emergency phone system, was crucial, he said. “That could affect me,” said the sophomore, an international business major. “I’m going to be here two or three years.”

Students agreed that crime is a major concern, and the precinct’s 5-2 vote in favor of the 911 measure seemed to reflect that. But several Trojans interviewed also noted that they rely on their university’s security force, so even the 911 measure didn’t hit home.

In the rough, crime-plagued Imperial Courts housing project, many residents say that they have used the city’s 911 line to summon police and paramedics for fights and shootings. The vote was 12-2 in support of the improved 911 system, records show.

That was fine as far as it went, but poll worker Eunice Iona Hill said she and her assistants were “just amazed” by the dismal turnout. “All we could agree (on) was that we did our part,” she said.

Along 115th Street, one of the main streets through the projects, people said they did not know there was an election. Some said they didn’t have time to vote.

One 35-year-old woman, who declined to give her name, said she skipped voting because she was “just lazy.”

“I wasn’t really aware of 911 and all this other stuff,” she said.

The lack of a City Council race in the 15th District, where the projects are located, undoubtedly kept turnout low, Iyengar said.

But Carrie Green, 55, one of those who did vote, rolled her eyes in disgust at the 18-voter turnout. “The main thing is I think people don’t take time,” she said. “They’re doing something else when they should be doing something very important to them.”

Sherry King, 34, who is registered but did not vote, said she saw no publicity about the election. “There were no flyers passed out,” she said.

Many residents do not--or cannot--read newspapers, she said. And most are far more concerned with survival and getting dinner on the table than a local election, she said.

Three young women--two of whom said they were threatened by gang members while walking to the store the day before--said they would have enthusiastically voted for the 911 system improvements, had they known about the election. “(Police) need to come when you call,” said Cheryl Wilborn, 25. “It isn’t safe (here) anytime. It isn’t safe day or night.”

But Wilborn complained that a notice which said the polling place had been changed arrived in the mail late on the day of the election.

Hill, the poll worker, said balloting was shifted from the normal location in the project’s recreation center to a school a few blocks away. A large sign was posted at the center, but the move probably discouraged voters, she said.

“They didn’t choose to walk up there,” she said. “I feel if you want to do something, the distance is not that far.”

Martinez, of the city clerk’s office, said officials try to avoid such changes, and make every effort to get notices out before the election. He said he was not familiar with the specifics of the Imperial Courts change, but he said it seemed unlikely the polling place change would account entirely for the low turnout.

Hill noted that the polls were open after dark, but she and others said few people in the projects venture out after dusk because of fear of crime. “I’m sure that is one of the reasons” for the poor turnout, she said.

Iyengar said education and demographics play a role in low voter participation in neighborhoods like Imperial Courts. Studies show that people with poor educations and low levels of civic involvement often feel alienated and do not bother to cast ballots, he said. “They feel my vote is not going to count,” he said.

But whether it is well-to-do USC students or needy housing project residents or any of the hundreds of thousands of other eligible Los Angeles residents who skip their election day duty, Iyengar said, they will come up with “small, convenient excuses.”

“The tendency is for people to rationalize why they are not voting,” he said.

VOTER TURNOUT In the Los Angeles city election on April 9, the voter turnout was highest in the eight highlighted districts where City Council elections were being conducted:

DISTRICT INCUMBENT VOTERS BALLOTS CAST PERCENTAGE 1 Vacant 34,097 4,658 14% 2 Joel Wachs 90,472 16,043 18% 3 Joy Picus 100,964 14,681 15% 4 John Ferraro 77,054 12,719 16% 5 Zev Yaroslavsky 124,791 15,426 12% 6 Ruth Galanter 105,210 25,427 24% 7 Ernani Bernardi 72,026 8,236 11% 8 Robert Farrell* 80,962 17,739 22% 9 Vacant 57,354 13,624 24% 10 Nate Holden 76,722 13,689 18% 11 Marvin Braude 114,218 15,519 14% 12 Hal Bernson 111,297 27,673 25% 13 Michael Woo 81,515 11,010 14% 14 Richard Alatorre 63,744 13,196 21% 15 Joan Milke Flores 79,312 8,949 11% TOTAL 1,269,738 227,589** 18%

* Councilman Robert Farrell will retire June 30. ** Total number of ballots cast include an additional 9,000 absentee ballots still to be tabulated. Source: Los Angeles City Clerk, Elections Division. Compiled by Times editorial researcher Cecilia Rasmussen